Cheryl’s take…
This Dale Carnegie book is a classic for sure. It’s filled with reminder after reminder of how to treat people right. In our world today, it resonates even more. Like a lot of good self-improvement books, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” doesn’t provide any great revelations; rather it provides a refresher course on positive behaviors.
It’s packed with little stories that support what we already know – treating people right (the way they want to be treated – not the way we want to treat them) is the best way to develop great relationships. The book is loaded with examples that apply to our work as well as our family & friend relationships.
My recommendation for how to read (or re-read) this book is to keep it close at hand and once a day, just pop it open to a random page and read the 1-2 stories you happen on. You will most likely be entertained with some little known piece of history trivia in addition to being challenged with how to be a better person through your actions.
A few examples…
Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him/her strive to justify themselves. Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain-and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. As Dr. Johnson said: “God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. Why should you and I?”
Why talk about what we want? That is childish. Absurd. Of course, you are interested in what you want. You are eternally interested in it. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: we are interested in what we want. So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.
You can make more friends in two months becoming genuinely interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
People who smile tend to manage, teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier children. You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Force yourself to smile. A famous psychologist and philosopher put it this way: “Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.”
If you want to know how to make people shun you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other person is talking, don’t wait for him or her to finish: bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.
Whenever Roosevelt expected a visitor, he sat up late the night before, reading up on the subject in which he knew his guest was particularly interested. For Roosevelt knew, as all good leaders know, that the royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.
Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.” …success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other persons’ viewpoint.
If, as a result of reading this book, you get only one thing–an increased tendency to think always in terms of the other person’s point of view, and see things from that person’s angle as well as your own. That (according to Dale Carnegie) could prove to be the biggest stepping stone to a successful career.
Just imagine if everyone on Social Media applied the principles in this book! What a different feel there would be to our Twitter or Facebook feeds!
Pete’s take…
Have you ever watched one of those old classic black and white movies like To Kill a Mockingbird or Casablanca? If you’re like me, and many others, you may have said “now that was one great movie.” If you haven’t seen these, I suspect that you were born after 1990 and you thought that if it’s in black and white it has to be boring. These movies are anything but boring and you really need to put them on your “must watch list.” These were great movies without all the special effects that you see in the modern movies of today.
Reading How to Win Friends and Influence Others reminded me of watching old black and white movies and not because the ink is black and the page is white in this book. Speaking of classics, that reminds me of the Three Dog Night song called Black and White. Click on this for a quick listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f65mO146Zo That was even better than I remembered it to be.
Dale Carnegie teaches by using stories. In this book, he references about 300 different stories on how people have achieved great outcomes by using simple common courtesies. His stories show how people can have differences and learn to work together by listening to each other and being kind. He tries to get his readers to win people over by empathizing with them.
This book was first published in 1937 and has been revised many times over. The last time I read it had to be about 30 years ago. In today’s day an age of Twitter and Facebook rants, many people have no intention of winning friends or influencing people. We sure don’t see it in our politicians. Wouldn’t it be great for this to be mandatory reading for all people who are elected into public office? I bet we would see a whole lot more accomplished.
I also believe that Dale’s principles would help many sales people achieve their goals. Reading a book like this for a second or third time makes me realize the importance of treating people the right way. It’s the basics of building relationships. So many of these black and white movies, and books, hold so much truth!
